The tribally owned radio station, KIDE FM, is located in Hoopa Valley, California. It resides adjacent to the Red Salmon Complex, where flames have been spreading. The fire is 31% contained now, but since late July, the smoke has been overwhelming.
Station manager Joseph Orozco commented on the smoke in early September.
“Today is a smoky day. We have a fire that’s over the ridge here,” he said.
At the time the fire had taken from 200 to 500 acres of land.
“-And it just like, rained ash on the whole valley. People woke up in the morning and we had ash on the cars. We had ash on the sheep. It covered everything,” Orozco said.
KIDE has been in this situation before. In 1999, they were so inundated with smoke that the CDC identified Hoopa Valley as having unhealthy smoke levels for 2 months. So from that crisis, people on the reservation learned to be familiar with smoke protocol: stay indoors and use HEPA filters if possible.